Mechanisms of nonpermissiveness in abortive infection of bacteriophage .PHI.NR2 in Bacillus subtilis Marburg strain.

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Abstract
A mutant strain PS9, permissive to infection of phages SP10 and .vphi.NR2, was derived from a nonpermissive Marburg strain of B. subtilis. When treated with mitomycin C or UV irradiation, PS9 cells lysed to produce defective phage PBSX as did the nonpermissive cells. Thus the nonpermissiveness might be independent of the repression system of the defective phage PBSX. As another approach to elucidate the mechanism of nonpermissiveness, DNA and RNA syntheses were analyzed in both permissive and nonpermissive cells infected with phage .vphi.NR2. By molecular hybridization with phage DNA, it was found that, in the nonpermissive cells, .vphi.NR2 DNA did not replicate but phage-directed RNA was partially synthesized. The RNA synthesized in the nonpermissive B. subtilis Marburg appeared to lack late mRNA compared to RNA synthesized in the permissive cells.